So we sort of have our T-65 fix with IA (okay not perfect since it applies to T-70s too which makes them even better) but has anyone playtested any potential titles to make regular TIE/Ln fighters a little more fun to use now?

I was thinking something like "Weight of Numbers" (or something like that) and trying to make it like if a ship with this title is within range one of another ship with this title it gets X bonus (probably something attack related I was thinking a double tap or uncancelled Crits ignore shields, or the Defender must reroll evades and/or focus results)

Any ideas/thoughts are welcome

I have no terribly useful suggestions, but the post does give me a few thoughts.

1) The IA title doesn't make T-70s 'even better' per se; they were built to be roughly as efficient points-wise as the T-65. They work out better because they have the extra slots, so you end up with the Corran Effect - if you're willing to spend the points, you can brute-force efficiency through sweet combos.

2) That we're even discussing 'how do we fix TIE Fighters' at all is perhaps the most damning indication of where the game has gone of late. They were the gold standard of balance, once. I'd always enjoyed that fact.

Mod: "Simple and Rugged". If you are dealt a face up damage card, flip it face down.

I would like multiple generic titles which gave bonuses with other same titled fighters.

Various benefits could be,

Omicron Squadron: 1 point. TIE/ln only. While within range 1 of another friendly ship with this title, you may spend their focus tokens as if they were your own.

Beta Squadron: 1 point. TIE/ln only. While within range 1 of another friendly ship with this title, you may spend their evade tokens as if they were your own.

Nu Squadron: 1 point. XG-1 Star wing only. You may equip an additional title upgrade. Action: Choose another friendly ship with this title within range 1. You may discard one weapons disabled token on that friendly ship.

Snap shot was supposed to fix all low ps ships with elites......too bad its not that good!

Id love to see some sort of 'squadron' titles come out. Something that makes you want to fly all the same type of ship. Quad X-Wings or 8 Tie Fighters or 4 Tie Interceptors!

Ties really just need a better way to punch 1 damage thru.

I suggested a fix for all 2 attack ships not so long ago, it was sth like this IIRC

Quote

Precision Lasers - Modification - 2 pts

Small ship only.

When attacking with your primary weapon, you may cancel two hit or crit results to deal 1 damage to the defender.

You may not equip this modification if you have a primary weapon value of "3" or higher.

It fixes most 2 attack ships, and buffs the SF and ARC a bit. I'm okay with that.

36 minutes ago, RufusDaMan said:

I suggested a fix for all 2 attack ships not so long ago, it was sth like this IIRC

Precision Lasers - Modification - 2 pts

Small ship only.

When attacking with your primary weapon, you may cancel two hit or crit results to deal 1 damage card to the defender.

You may not equip this modification if you have a primary weapon value of "3" or higher.

It fixes most 2 attack ships, and buffs the SF and ARC a bit. I'm okay with that.

Um, a word addition idea? ?

Just now, clanofwolves said:

Um, a word addition idea? ?

Do you really want two lucky TIEs to kill Corran?

I think that is a bit too much power. In fact, how bout this (as a pair to Precision lasers)?

Quote

High powered lasers - Modification - 3 pts

When attacking with a primary weapon, you must re-roll your focus results.
If this attack hits, deal 1 faceup damage card to the defender, then cancel all results.
You may not equip this modification if your primary weapon value is "2" or lower.

How about a Concentrated Fire ability that allows you to combine your attacks with anybody else with the Title at range 1? Pretty much roll a huge block of dice in exchange for not being able to do multiple attacks to strip tokens? Make it cost 3-4 points so putting it on an entire swarm is prohibitively expensive.

We have swarm leader, so how about an EPT called "Swarm" Non-unique Pilot only: Increase your pilot skill by 1 for each other ship with Swarm in your squad. During the Perform Action step, if another friendly ship with Swarm is at Range 1-2, you may perform one free action. Cost 3

Could also make it Imperial Only for "it's about time's sake"

I’d like to see

title: Black Squadron

Imperial only, Tie Fighter only

if firing at a target that another ship with this title already fired at this phase, add one hit to your roll

if defending and your attacker is in arc of another ship with this title, add one evade to your roll

I kind of want unique TIE Fighter titles like Black 2 and Obsidian 3 just as much as I want Gold 5 for Y-wings and Red 2 for X-wings.

Swarm Fighter: [Title, zero cost]
Generic TIE fighter, interceptor, FO, and Striker only. Imperial Only.

When attacking, if at least 2 other friendly ships with the Swarm Fighter title have the defender inside their firing arc at Range 1-3, you may add 1 [hit] result to your roll. I f you do, and this attack hits the target ship, the ship suffers 1 damage, then cancel all dice results.

MAKE SWARMS GREAT AGAIN!!!

Swarm Fighter: When you take an evade action, you may take a free focus action.

Explicitly intended to combo with Swarm Leader, and to only work with ships with native evades.

It would probably have to be Small Ship Only too.

• Whatever 'solution' you want should be a title
  • This means that it doesn't automatically hand the same upgrade to the Scyk (since the Scyk is almost automatically either 'heavy' or 'light' and hence the title is taken).
  • Currently access to the speed 1 bank and target lock means the Scyk is a touch ahead as an 8-ship swarmer ( admittedly lacking Youngster for awesome stress-piling action but getting PS2 for the base pilot)
• It should probably not apply to the TIE/fo (because handing free stuff to Omega Leader needs to be handled carefully) and definitely not to the TIE/sf (although, again, if it's a title then the need to equip Spec Ops Training should nip that problem in the bud).
• Interaction with Swarm LEader is nice, but it doesn't actually promote you using a swarm. What it promotes is using a mini-swarm plus a big nasty (like a Defender or Large Ship) because the Swarm Leader needs to be able to actually survive the amount of aggression they will inevitably draw and....TIE fighters can't do that. If you had the ability to move EPTs around if you were destroyed, it might work (and it would also be nice with a Crackswarm, as you wouldn't lose un-expended Crack Shots)
• The ability to get focus/evade easily is already available to TIE fighters via Night Beast and Chaser.
• To be honest, for the feel of swarmy numbers I'd primarily like to see a reinforcement mechanic as per quite a few of the scenarios, respawning a number of destroyed non-unique TIE fighters.

23 hours ago, Gundog8324 said:

So we sort of have our T-65 fix with IA (okay not perfect since it applies to T-70s too which makes them even better) but has anyone playtested any potential titles to make regular TIE/Ln fighters a little more fun to use now?

Yes. I have updated TIE Fighters for Community Mod, and am using them to re-establish a new power curve for the game.

9 hours ago, CRCL said:

Swarm Fighter: [Title, zero cost]
Generic TIE fighter, interceptor, FO, and Striker only. Imperial Only.

When attacking, if at least 2 other friendly ships with the Swarm Fighter title have the defender inside their firing arc at Range 1-3, you may add 1 [hit] result to your roll. I f you do, and this attack hits the target ship, the ship suffers 1 damage, then cancel all dice results.

MAKE SWARMS GREAT AGAIN!!!

This is very similiar to what I settled on for Community Mod!

TIEs fundamentally have an accuracy problem; 2 attack just can't punch through certain targets, so having a mechanism to add accuracy at the expense of maximum possible damage is just what's needed. I don't think Interceptors need damage help since they already have 3 attack dice. But basic TIEs also need a marginal tweak to their durability, although not as much as gaining a full extra hull - games just take too long to complete in that case.

16 hours ago, RufusDaMan said:

I suggested a fix for all 2 attack ships not so long ago, it was sth like this IIRC

It fixes most 2 attack ships, and buffs the SF and ARC a bit. I'm okay with that.

While I commend you for the effort, I think autodamage effect do more harm from a gameplay perspective, than good. I would prefer something like this:

Precision Lasers - Modification - 2 pts

Small ship only.

When attacking with your primary weapon, add 1 [Focus] result to your roll.

You may not equip this modification if you have a primary weapon value of "3" or higher.

I've been saying this for a while but I think most of the games balance issues are rooted in the underpricing of PS increases which has, with a small handful of exceptions, made each ship only usable with it's highest PS pilot. This has always been a problem but it's been getting much worse as there became more and more ways to arc dodge while still getting strong dice mods and as the increase in the number of PS9s edged out a lot of the things generics did well against. TIEs suffered more than most from this because they more than any other ship rely on their low PS pilots but it's affected basically everything.

The fix I came up with was this:

Mass Produced

Mod

You may not equip this card if your PS is 6 or higher. You may equip one additional mod but may not equip any upgrade cards which cost 3 points or more.

-2 points.

3 minutes ago, Captain Pellaeon said:

While I commend you for the effort, I think autodamage effect do more harm from a gameplay perspective, than good. I would prefer something like this:

That's a bit of a red dice creep. I don't think the solution to 2 dice attacks is to make them 2.5 dice attacks. An autodamage is managable, even against green dice tanks, because they usually do arc dodging anyway. One 2 attack ship won't probably one shot an ace, but with your suggestion Mauler Mithel throws 4 dice and a focus result in range one. With expertise you have essentially 5 dice attacks at range one, for 23 points. I'm not sure that would solve anything. (It would be fun tho :D)

Imagine this build:

Your proposed Precision lasers on all ships

Mauler Mithel - Expertise - Precision lasers - 23 pts
Scourge - Expertise - Precision lasers - 23 pts
Howlrunner - Swarmleader - Precision lasers - 23 pts
The Inquisitor - PTL - title - Precision lasers - 31 pts

Mauler 4 dice attack at range 1, all focus to hits, 1 guaranteed hit, 1 re-roll
Scourge 4 dice attack at range 1 if the target has at least 1 damage, all focus to hits, 1 guaranteed hit, 1 re-roll
Howlrunner Up to 5 dice attack at range 1, +1 focus result
Inquisitor 3 dice attack, +1 focus result, double mods, 1 re-roll.

A bit too much I think. It would sure make the humble TIE-s scary again.

1 minute ago, RufusDaMan said:

A bit too much I think. It would sure make the humble TIE-s scary again.

That was kind of my intention. I would love to see TIE-s being popular again because they are, you know, good .

Although I agree that it's a huge boost for the offense output, but it also practically forces to use the focus token on the attack, leaving only the green dice for defense. TIEs like this would hit hard, but be just as fragile as ever. Okay, you can use Expertise, but then one stress token and you're done for. Swarm Leader needs a swarm, and there are a lot of anti-swarm tactics nowadays, like Harpoon and Assault Missiles, and all sorts of bombs. In an extreme case of green dice fail, a 3 Assault Missile alpha strike can potentially clear Howlrunner and 3 of her wingmans off the table. So there are ways to counter them.

I would like TIEs appearing as glass cannons. Hit hard then die hard. It's pretty much what they did in the movies.

Just now, Captain Pellaeon said:

That was kind of my intention. I would love to see TIE-s being popular again because they are, you know, good .

Although I agree that it's a huge boost for the offense output, but it also practically forces to use the focus token on the attack, leaving only the green dice for defense. TIEs like this would hit hard, but be just as fragile as ever. Okay, you can use Expertise, but then one stress token and you're done for. Swarm Leader needs a swarm, and there are a lot of anti-swarm tactics nowadays, like Harpoon and Assault Missiles, and all sorts of bombs. In an extreme case of green dice fail, a 3 Assault Missile alpha strike can potentially clear Howlrunner and 3 of her wingmans off the table. So there are ways to counter them.

I would like TIEs appearing as glass cannons. Hit hard then die hard. It's pretty much what they did in the movies.

A fair point. Shame it will never happen :/

Just now, RufusDaMan said:

A fair point. Shame it will never happen :/

I think the Gunboat is the prime example of the "never say never" thing. X)

Who knows, maybe someday we'll get something like this. Let's just hope it won't take 13 Waves of expansions, though.

5 minutes ago, Captain Pellaeon said:

I think the Gunboat is the prime example of the "never say never" thing. X)

Who knows, maybe someday we'll get something like this. Let's just hope it won't take 13 Waves of expansions, though.

Maybe add a restriction to the card. Maybe at range 1-2. Then it should be fine.

2 minutes ago, RufusDaMan said:

Maybe add a restriction to the card. Maybe at range 1-2. Then it should be fine.

Sounds reasonable. It kind of fits in with the lore as well since precision should happen up close, although a range 3 attack means it's easier to evade. How about we turn it around, and restrict it to range 2-3?

Just now, Captain Pellaeon said:

Sounds reasonable. It kind of fits in with the lore as well since precision should happen up close, although a range 3 attack means it's easier to evade. How about we turn it around, and restrict it to range 2-3?

Doesn't make much sense, but I guess balance wise it should be fine. Balance > Lore. Although it is not very elegant.